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Chris Trottier

@moliver Paying for server uptime is not the same—and you know it!

Mastodon isn’t just free and open source, it comes with an AGPL license.

I can run Mastodon on my own hardware—for free. And many do just that.

But should you opt to pay for Mastodon, there’s a big difference between $8 to run your own server and $8 to be visible on Twitter.

28 Mar 2023 at 22:09 | Open on mastodon.social
3 comments
𝗺𝗼𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿

@atomicpoet
There is always a cost involved for someone, and you know it.

28 Mar 2023 at 22:21 | Open on pleistocene.social
Chris Trottier

@moliver Is this the part where you say “the Internet isn’t free”? Because everyone with a smartphone knows this.

The point is that Mastodon itself is free, both in the sense of “free as in beer” and “free as in freedom”.

I can download Mastodon, run it on my own hardware, and pay nothing except the price of bandwidth.

Can I download Twitter and run it on my hardware (legally)?

29 Mar 2023 at 1:56 | Open on mastodon.social
Olav

@atomicpoet
@moliver managed hosting is so cheap that anything under 500 users it's hard to even do the math. At 100 users, everyone pitches in $0.25/months maybe a little more if you want to buy the mods a latte
Yes, not free. But a smallish instance is cheap enough for anyone with a little savvy that it's not worth the effort to ask for donations

29 Mar 2023 at 5:12 | Open on spacey.space
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